


Tiger

by misura



Category: Havemercy Series - Jaida Jones & Danielle Bennett
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-07
Updated: 2011-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-21 03:23:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/220366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caius takes stock of his menagerie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tiger

The peacocks were quite as glorious as Caius remembered them - and quite vocal in the morning, the afternoon and the evening, he was told, although not intolerably so, given that he had no trouble at all getting a good night's sleep (or, if he did, it was not because of the peacocks).

Five red pandas seemed quite at home and were, he was happy to hear, no trouble at all to anyone, except for the part where they were nearly as popular with adults as with children. Caius sympathized; had there not been other things requiring his attention, he dared say he might have spent an entire afternoon doing nothing at all but look at them.

Lastly, there was the tiger.

It wouldn't eat, it wouldn't get up, and when someone, in an act of desperation, had released a living chicken inside its cage, it had only struck to kill it when the chicken had been so unwise as to cackle.

Looking at it, Caius felt faintly guilty. It had been entrusted to his care, after all; he ought to ensure that it was, if not happy, then at least content in its imprisonment.

On a positive note, even lying down and not doing much of anything, it still looked quite fearsome.

"Should be a crime," Alcibiades said, with altogether more emotion than Caius had seen him display over either the peacocks or the pandas.

"It must be such a thrilling adventure to capture one, don't you think?" Caius tried to remember if he'd been told where tigers lived - he vaguely remembered something about woods, with the stripes serving as camouflage during the night. "Why, I'd be surprised if people wouldn't _die_ on such expeditions."

Alcibiades grunted.

"I'm sure they're _very_ well paid, my dear," Caius said. "How many would this one have killed before they got him, do you think? Two? Three? I think two, at the very least."

"And then they stuck him in a cage for anyone to gape at for the rest of his life."

"I, for one, am quite grateful they did." Caius smiled. "And it's a tiger, general - not a soldier. I promise you, nobody has any intentions of sticking _you_ in a cage - well, not to put you on public display, at any rate. You are quite safe."

Alcibiades frowned at him.

Caius considered. Clearly, his arguments were not convincing Alcibiades. Worse, he feared the whole thing with the tiger might distract Alcibiades from the true purpose of his visit, which was for him and Caius to get to know one another even better than they already did. Caius had been quite looking forwards to it for weeks, and he'd already made all kinds of plans, including a visit from his favorite tailor. If Alcibiades would sulk over the tiger, it would make everything much more difficult.

"Perhaps," he proposed brightly, "we could return it."

Alcibiades made a noise that did not sound encouraging.

"Not to Ke-Han, of course," Caius clarified, slightly irked Alcibiades had not immediately understood that. "To wherever it is tigers come from. I confess, I haven't got the first idea where that might be, but I'm sure we can find out." The more he thought about it, the better the plan sounded. "It will be _such_ a thrilling adventure."

Alcibiades sighed. It wasn't quite the same as his jumping up and down with joy and declaring that, of course, he would be delighted to accompany Caius in this expedition, but Caius knew that since this was Alcibiades, it was _almost_ the same.

Now all that remained was deciding on an appropriate wardrobe.


End file.
